Nowadays must of workplace associate employee productivity to
the well-being /health of the employees. Employee performance and
morale is very much affected by his/her mental and physical health
.Increased number of employees report higher level of diseases
related to obesity, heart problems, back and spinal problem, neck
& other joint pains, eye sight blurriness and also increase
levels of stress and depression.
These problems can be attributed to below
points:-
- Increased number of hours spent in office/working from
home(more number of hours spend working on laptop)
- Increased stress due to tight deadlines, pressure to perform
well in world of stiff competition.
- Unhealthy working conditions
- Sedentary lifestyles (long office hours, no exercise, oily/junk
food)
If an employee falls sick, it will cost a lot to the company in
terms of financials (health cover provided by company) and also in
terms of man hours. It may also be possible that if an employee
falls sick severely, he/she may need to be replaced and company
will also lose time/money to hire and train new resource.
Considering prevention is better than cure, the
organization can adopt few intervention best practises to improve
the health and wellbeing of its employees
An initial survey to know about
- demographics of employee,
- food & diet habit,
- work conditions,
- type of difficulty they are facing at workplace,
- disease if any and
- Habits like smoking/drinking etc.
Based on survey results we will make a multitenant intervention
strategy to improve the health & well-being of our 200
employees.
Types of intervention:-
- Educational or consultative intervention: -
here we can organize different types of sessions on self-care,
health management, healthy eating, stress management, physical
activity etc.
- one to one session with each employee
- Group sessions with employees during break hours
- Special health & diet counselling by health
professionals
- Regular health checkups and dedicated medical programs for
chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, blood
pressure etc.
- Yoga session or Meditation session or laughing session
- Brochures, mails, books etc. as part of health program
- Environmental or Workplace changes:-
- Sitting posture (if office chairs are causing problems in
sitting posture than that has to be changed.)
- Lighting conditions ( natural light must be present)
- Greenery (place some natural indoor plants near workplace)
- Color of the workplace
- In case of manufacturing companies safety must be given
priority (ear plugs ,masks ,gloves etc. must be provided to
operators depending on nature of work)
- If employees (like in plants) have to stand for long hours at a
stretch then they must be given regular breaks to sit &
relax.
- Recreational activity at office: Sports & Entertainment
facilities, Dormitories
- Office challenge like “who will lose maximum weight in 30 days
“ to motivate the employees to stay healthy
- Physical Activity & healthy diet
- Provide gym sessions/yoga sessions/zumba/aerobics in
office
- Provide option for healthy food at office cafeteria (at
affordable prices)
- Ensure the food providers at cafeteria serve quality food with
less oil & more nutritional value
- Free fitness Center memberships
- Encourage employees to do more physical activity & take up
fitness challenges
- Stress Management
- Healthy relationship between peers, colleagues, bosses,
seniors
- In case of any discrepancy/conflict a team will be there where
one can go address their grievance and the team will help in
resolving the conflict
- Leisure activities
- Work pressure analysis through one on one counselling and
taking necessary steps to avoid it. (equal work load
distribution)
- Flexible work hours
- Interventions using the power of Technology
- Running fitness challenge through Fitness apps
- Regular communication through mails, messages
- Podcasts, motivational videos etc.
- Daily health tips through apps/mails
In order to have the desired effect the company can adopt any
permutation combination of above strategies as suited to its
working conditions, demography of employees, location,
industry/sector and other parameters.